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After installing Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows 8.1 you will be asked if this is a home/work network or not. Based on that windows will choose your network profile.

I was some kind distracted and accidently clicked in the middle of the desktop and the sidebar disappeared. Windows decided that this is a “No” and you will be on a public network. I’ve no idea why but you can not change it through the network and sharing center, all settings you’re trying to set will be set back to default of public networks. Like network discovery. So how to change it? Quite easy, just open the registry and navigate to the following path:

There will be at least one key in that list. Simply delete the one you want to reset and reboot your machine. After that you will be asked again. However I would only recommend that method if that happened to you right after the setup as I don’t know if some firewall rules will be reset or deleted.

I’ve tried to install some machines on my Hyper-V. All ISOs were placed on the second drive where data deduplication is enabled. With deduplication enabled I ran into the problem that no serial/license number was accepted neither the AVMA Key nor the generic KMS Key or my own key. After hours of searching for solutions on the web and no solution in sight. I copied the iso to drive D again. Suprise it was working! One day later I tried to install a new machine and it wasn’t working again. No key accepted. After moving it to drive C where no deduplication happens its working again.

I’ve rented a lot of linux vps around the world for testing and hosting teamspeak and other stuff. Not every application runs on linux so I decided to build a small home server with a low power consumption.

I stumbled over the list of components in the hardwareluxx forums and build my system based on that components. ( Link )

Here is my list:

Intel Pentium G3420

ASRock Z87E-ITX

Crucial Ballistix Sport Kit 8GB ( DDR3-1600, CL9-9-9-24 )

EKL Alpenföhn Silvretta

be quiet! Pure Power L8 300W ATX 2.4

SanDisk SSD 128GB

Kingston SSDNow mS200 SSD 30 GB

Cooler Master Elite 130

First of all I removed the Mini PCIe Wifi card from the mainboard as its not needed and plugged in the mSATA at the bottom of it. The small SSD can be used for the OS (Server 2012 R2) or as Host Cache for ESXi.
After putting all components together I enabled all bios settings allowing power savings and switched of the soundcard etc. I also tried to undervolt the CPU with the VCore Offset and got it down to -0,235mV.

Here are the results (power measurement):

ESXi 5.5 U1

Windows Server 2012 R2

Idle

18.2 Watts

11.1 Watts

Load

39.6 Watts

35.8 Watts

Make sure all drivers are installed and no usb devices are plugged in. The usb devices may prevent reaching a package c-state of more than 80.

The network drivers are a little tricky. For ESXi 5.5 followthis guide ESXi 6.0 includes drivers for Intel I217V and for Server 2012 follow this guide.